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In an example, a processing device of a datastore system may be
configured to identify one or more grants of permission corresponding to
one or more first objects, respectively, wherein the one or more first
objects comprise only a subset of objects of a datastore, wherein the one
or more grants of permission are by a user of the datastore; generate an
access control entry for a second object of the objects using at least
one of the identified grants of permission, wherein the second object is
not exposed to the user; and in responsive to receipt of a query for data
corresponding to the objects, determine whether to grant access to the
data based on the generated access control entry.

1. A memory device having instructions stored thereon that, in response
to execution by a processing device, cause the processing device to
perform operations comprising: identifying one or more grants of
permission corresponding to one or more first objects, respectively,
wherein the one or more first objects comprise only a subset of objects
of a datastore for a cloud service, wherein the one or more first objects
includes a business object and the one or more grants of permission are
by a subscriber of the cloud service; generating an access control entry
for a second object of the objects using at least one of the identified
grants of permission, wherein the second object is not exposed to the
subscriber; and in responsive to receipt of a query for data
corresponding to the objects, determining whether to grant access to the
data based on the generated access control entry.

2. The memory device of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise
generating a user interface to enable one or more users of the subscriber
to select, for tagging as readable or writable or both, only objects of
the subset of the objects.

4. The memory device of claim 3, wherein the relational datastore storage
artifact includes at least one of a relational database table, a
relational database column, a relational database procedure, a relational
database view, a relational database function, or a relational database
sequence.

5. The memory device of claim 1, wherein the cloud service comprises a
PaaS (platform as a service) and the business objects comprise modular
combinable code blocks.

6. The memory device of claim 1, wherein the identified one or more
grants of permission correspond to at least one of read access or write
access.

7. The memory device of claim 1, wherein the operations include:
translating information about the first objects to mapping information
comprising the second objects; and using the mapping information to
generate the access control entry.

8. The memory device of claim 7, wherein the second objects correspond to
at least one of a relational database table, a relational database
column, a relational database procedure, a relational database view, a
relational database function, or a relational database sequence.

9. The memory device of claim 1, wherein the grants of permission are for
renderings of data associated with the first objects.

10. The memory device of claim 1, wherein the operations further
comprise: constructing a reverse multimap to map between the second
objects and attributes of the first objects; wherein determining whether
to grant access to the data based on the generated access control entry
includes querying the reverse multimap.

11. A memory device having stored thereon: an instruction control entry
including executable instructions to read tagging data of a first object
responsive to storage of the first object of a plurality of objects in a
datastore of a cloud service or modification of the first object in the
datastore, to generate an access control entry for a second object of the
plurality of objects based on a result of the reading; and an instruction
control interface module to determine whether to grant access to data
that is of the datastore and associated with the second object based on
the generated access control entry, to return a result for the query
based on a result of the determination.

12. The memory device of claim 11, wherein the returned result includes a
grant of access to the data or user messaging indicating no access to the
data.

13. The memory device of claim 11, wherein the returned result is to be
presented on a web page.

14. The memory device of claim 11, wherein the determination is for
access by a first category of user and the memory device further having
stored thereon: an object access tagging module to generate the tagging
data based on a user selection of a second category of user that is
different than the first category of user.

15. The memory device of claim 11, further having stored thereon: a
mapping translator module to construct a multimap to map an attribute of
the first object to at least the second object and a third object of the
plurality of objects, the multimap usable to generate a reverse multimap
to be used to determine whether to grant access to data.

16. A method, comprising: generating a user interface to enable one or
more users of a subscribing entity of a cloud service to select, to tag
as readable or writable or both, only objects of a first subset of a
plurality of objects of a datastore of the cloud service; translating the
objects of the first subset and their attributes to mapping information
for objects of a second different subset of the plurality of objects;
building a reverse multimap corresponding to the objects of the second
different subset using the mapping information; and in response to
receipt of a request by a user of a hosting entity of the cloud service,
identifying a portion of data of the datastore to which the request
corresponds and determining whether to grant access to the user of the
hosting entity access to that portion of the data using the reverse
multimap.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising: after the user interface
is displayed, receiving tagging information identifying one or more
business objects of the first subset of objects and business object
attributes corresponding thereto as readable or writable or both;
submitting a query to a query parser responsive to the receipt of the
request; parsing the query to validate a query syntax; creating and
returning a query object corresponding to the query; translating the
business objects and their attributes to mapping information comprising
tables and columns, the tables and columns comprising ones of the objects
of the second subset; and applying the tables and columns to build the
reverse multimap.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising: validating that the query
has a filter specified for a target organization; wherein the tables and
columns correspond to the target organization.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising: analyzing the query
object for columns of the objects of the second subset that directly or
indirectly appear in the query; analyzing corresponding tables and
columns for each of the columns that directly or indirectly appear in the
query for a set of corresponding business object attributes; creating an
accesses set corresponding to the set of corresponding business object
attributes comprising accesses granted to each of the business object
attributes, the accesses granted of said tagging information; applying
system rules or a configuration to select, for the query, a single
accesses value which either a first value or a second value that is
different than the first value; and stopping further processing of the
query and generating an indication that the query violates access rights
if the first value is selected.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising: submitting the query to
the datastore for execution to return a result of execution of the query
by the datastore if the second value is selected.

21. A memory device having instructions stored thereon that, in response
to execution by a processing device, cause the processing device to
perform operations comprising: identifying one or more grants of
permission corresponding to one or more first objects, respectively,
wherein the one or more first objects comprise only a subset of objects
of a datastore, wherein the one or more grants of permission are by a
user of the datastore; generating an access control entry for a second
object of the objects using at least one of the identified grants of
permission, wherein the second object is not exposed to the user; and in
responsive to receipt of a query for data corresponding to the objects,
determining whether to grant access to the data based on the generated
access control entry.

22. The memory device of claim 21, wherein the operations further
comprise generating a user interface to enable the user to select, for
tagging as readable or writable or both, only objects of the subset of
the objects.

24. The memory device of claim 23, wherein the relational datastore
storage artifact includes at least one of a relational database table, a
relational database column, a relational database procedure, a relational
database view, a relational database function, or a relational database
sequence.

25. The memory device of claim 21, wherein the grants of permission are
for renderings of data associated with the first objects.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

[0001] This application claims benefit of U.S. Application No. 62/364,964,
filed Jul. 21, 2016, which is incorporated herein by reference in its
entirety.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

[0002] A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains
material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner
has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent
document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the United States
Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise
reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0003] One or more implementations relate generally to datastores, and
some embodiments are related to access controlled queries against user
data in a datastore, e.g., a relational datastore.

[0005] The cloud computing subscribers may upload data stored on a
datastore of the cloud computing service (in some systems at least a
portion of this data may be referred to as "customer data" in some
systems and/or may be owned by the subscribers). The infrastructure
maintenance users (e.g., of the cloud computing provider) generally have
restricted access to at least some of the data from the subscribers. In
some systems, efforts to restrict access by the infrastructure
maintenance users can imped maintenance activities, including the
troubleshooting of performance issues, data corruption issues, debug
system malfunction issues, or the like.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0006] The included drawings are for illustrative purposes and serve to
provide examples of possible structures and operations for the disclosed
inventive systems, apparatus, methods and computer-readable storage
media. These drawings in no way limit any changes in form and detail that
may be made by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit
and scope of the disclosed implementations.

[0007] FIG. 1A shows a block diagram of an example environment in which an
on-demand database service can be used according to some implementations.

[0008] FIG. 1B shows a block diagram of example implementations of
elements of FIG. 1A and example interconnections between these elements
according to some implementations.

[0009] FIG. 2 illustrates an access control structure in accordance with
one embodiment.

[0010] FIG. 3 illustrates an access controller in accordance with one
embodiment.

[0011] FIG. 4 illustrates a process for issuing access controlled queries
in accordance with one embodiment.

[0012] FIG. 5 illustrates a process for issuing access controlled queries
in accordance with one embodiment.

[0013] FIG. 6 illustrates a system 500 in accordance with one embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0014] Examples of systems, apparatus, computer-readable storage media,
and methods according to the disclosed implementations are described in
this section. These examples are being provided solely to add context and
aid in the understanding of the disclosed implementations. It will thus
be apparent to one skilled in the art that the disclosed implementations
may be practiced without some or all of the specific details provided. In
other instances, certain process or method operations, also referred to
herein as "blocks," have not been described in detail in order to avoid
unnecessarily obscuring the disclosed implementations. Other
implementations and applications also are possible, and as such, the
following examples should not be taken as definitive or limiting either
in scope or setting.

[0015] In the following detailed description, references are made to the
accompanying drawings, which form a part of the description and in which
are shown, by way of illustration, specific implementations. Although
these disclosed implementations are described in sufficient detail to
enable one skilled in the art to practice the implementations, it is to
be understood that these examples are not limiting, such that other
implementations may be used and changes may be made to the disclosed
implementations without departing from their spirit and scope. For
example, the blocks of the methods shown and described herein are not
necessarily performed in the order indicated in some other
implementations. Additionally, in some other implementations, the
disclosed methods may include more or fewer blocks than are described. As
another example, some blocks described herein as separate blocks may be
combined in some other implementations. Conversely, what may be described
herein as a single block may be implemented in multiple blocks in some
other implementations. Additionally, the conjunction "or" is intended
herein in the inclusive sense where appropriate unless otherwise
indicated; that is, the phrase "A, B or C" is intended to include the
possibilities of "A," "B," "C," "A and B," "B and C," "A and C" and "A, B
and C."

[0016] Some implementations described and referenced herein are directed
to systems, apparatus, computer-implemented methods and computer-readable
storage media for access controlled queries against customer data in a
datastore, e.g., a relational database.

[0017] In an example, a processing device of a datastore system may be
configured to identify one or more grants of permission corresponding to
one or more first objects, respectively, wherein the one or more first
objects comprise only a subset of objects of a datastore, wherein the one
or more grants of permission are by a user of the datastore; generate an
access control entry for a second object of the objects using at least
one of the identified grants of permission, wherein the second object is
not exposed to the subscriber; and in responsive to receipt of a query
for data corresponding to the objects, determine whether to grant access
to the data based on the generated access control entry.

[0018] In some embodiments, the datastore may be for a cloud server, the
user may be a subscriber of a cloud service, the user data may be
customer data, and the one or more first objects includes a business
object. However, features described herein can be applied to databases
generally, and as such are not limited to cloud services. As an example,
a datastore may be for an organization having more than one user roles,
e.g., first users that have access to manipulate the data and second
users that are in a diagnostic role (performance management, or the
like). In one example, the datastore may be an in-house datastore (for
example an "intranet" database), and the first users may be human
resources employees that have access to sensitive data such as payroll
data, and the second users may be administrators of the datastore. The
first objects may be of the sensitive data, e.g., the payroll data.

I. Example System Overview

[0019] FIG. 1A shows a block diagram of an example of an environment 10 in
which an on-demand database service can be used in accordance with some
implementations. The environment 10 includes user systems 12, a network
14, a database system 16 (also referred to herein as a "cloud-based
system"), a processor system 17, an application platform 18, a network
interface 20, tenant database 22 for storing tenant data 23, system
database 24 for storing system data 25, program code 26 for implementing
various functions of the system 16, and process space 28 for executing
database system processes and tenant-specific processes, such as running
applications as part of an application hosting service. In some other
implementations, environment 10 may not have all of these components or
systems, or may have other components or systems instead of, or in
addition to, those listed above.

[0020] In some implementations, the environment 10 is an environment in
which an on-demand database service exists. An on-demand database
service, such as that which can be implemented using the system 16, is a
service that is made available to users outside of the enterprise(s) that
own, maintain or provide access to the system 16. As described above,
such users generally do not need to be concerned with building or
maintaining the system 16. Instead, resources provided by the system 16
may be available for such users' use when the users need services
provided by the system 16; that is, on the demand of the users. Some
on-demand database services can store information from one or more
tenants into tables of a common database image to form a multi-tenant
database system (MTS). The term "multi-tenant database system" can refer
to those systems in which various elements of hardware and software of a
database system may be shared by one or more customers or tenants. For
example, a given application server may simultaneously process requests
for a great number of customers, and a given database table may store
rows of data such as feed items for a potentially much greater number of
customers. A database image can include one or more database objects. A
relational database management system (RDBMS) or the equivalent can
execute storage and retrieval of information against the database
object(s).

[0021] Application platform 18 can be a framework that allows the
applications of system 16 to execute, such as the hardware or software
infrastructure of the system 16. In some implementations, the application
platform 18 enables the creation, management and execution of one or more
applications developed by the provider of the on-demand database service,
users accessing the on-demand database service via user systems 12, or
third party application developers accessing the on-demand database
service via user systems 12.

[0022] In some implementations, the system 16 implements a web-based
customer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, in some such
implementations, the system 16 includes application servers configured to
implement and execute CRM software applications as well as provide
related data, code, forms, renderable web pages and documents and other
information to and from user systems 12 and to store to, and retrieve
from, a database system related data, objects, and Web page content. In
some MTS implementations, data for multiple tenants may be stored in the
same physical database object in tenant database 22. In some such
implementations, tenant data is arranged in the storage medium(s) of
tenant database 22 so that data of one tenant is kept logically separate
from that of other tenants so that one tenant does not have access to
another tenant's data, unless such data is expressly shared. The system
16 also implements applications other than, or in addition to, a CRM
application. For example, the system 16 can provide tenant access to
multiple hosted (standard and custom) applications, including a CRM
application. User (or third party developer) applications, which may or
may not include CRM, may be supported by the application platform 18. The
application platform 18 manages the creation and storage of the
applications into one or more database objects and the execution of the
applications in one or more virtual machines in the process space of the
system 16.

[0023] According to some implementations, each system 16 is configured to
provide web pages, forms, applications, data and media content to user
(client) systems 12 to support the access by user systems 12 as tenants
of system 16. As such, system 16 provides security mechanisms to keep
each tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If more than one
MTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another (for
example, in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or
they may be distributed at locations remote from one another (for
example, one or more servers located in city A and one or more servers
located in city B). As used herein, each MTS could include one or more
logically or physically connected servers distributed locally or across
one or more geographic locations. Additionally, the term "server" is
meant to refer to a computing device or system, including processing
hardware and process space(s), an associated storage medium such as a
memory device or database, and, in some instances, a database application
(for example, OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art. It should
also be understood that "server system" and "server" are often used
interchangeably herein. Similarly, the database objects described herein
can be implemented as part of a single database, a distributed database,
a collection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online
or offline backups or other redundancies, etc., and can include a
distributed database or storage network and associated processing
intelligence.

[0024] The network 14 can be or include any network or combination of
networks of systems or devices that communicate with one another. For
example, the network 14 can be or include any one or any combination of a
LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network), telephone network,
wireless network, cellular network, point-to-point network, star network,
token ring network, hub network, or other appropriate configuration. The
network 14 can include a TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol and Internet
Protocol) network, such as the global internetwork of networks often
referred to as the "Internet" (with a capital "I"). The Internet will be
used in many of the examples herein. However, it should be understood
that the networks that the disclosed implementations can use are not so
limited, although TCP/IP is a frequently implemented protocol.

[0025] The user systems 12 can communicate with system 16 using TCP/IP
and, at a higher network level, other common Internet protocols to
communicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTP
is used, each user system 12 can include an HTTP client commonly referred
to as a "web browser" or simply a "browser" for sending and receiving
HTTP signals to and from an HTTP server of the system 16. Such an HTTP
server can be implemented as the sole network interface 20 between the
system 16 and the network 14, but other techniques can be used in
addition to or instead of these techniques. In some implementations, the
network interface 20 between the system 16 and the network 14 includes
load sharing functionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors
to balance loads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a
number of servers. In MTS implementations, each of the servers can have
access to the MTS data; however, other alternative configurations may be
used instead.

[0026] The user systems 12 can be implemented as any computing device(s)
or other data processing apparatus or systems usable by users to access
the database system 16. For example, any of user systems 12 can be a
desktop computer, a work station, a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a
handheld computing device, a mobile cellular phone (for example, a
"smartphone"), or any other Wi-Fi-enabled device, wireless access
protocol (WAP)-enabled device, or other computing device capable of
interfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other network. The
terms "user system" and "computing device" are used interchangeably
herein with one another and with the term "computer." As described above,
each user system 12 typically executes an HTTP client, for example, a web
browsing (or simply "browsing") program, such as a web browser based on
the WebKit platform, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, Apple's
Safari, Google's Chrome, Opera's browser, or Mozilla's Firefox browser,
or the like, allowing a user (for example, a subscriber of on-demand
services provided by the system 16) of the user system 12 to access,
process and view information, pages and applications available to it from
the system 16 over the network 14.

[0027] Each user system 12 also typically includes one or more user input
devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, a trackball, a touch pad, a touch
screen, a pen or stylus or the like, for interacting with a graphical
user interface (GUI) provided by the browser on a display (for example, a
monitor screen, liquid crystal display (LCD), light-emitting diode (LED)
display, among other possibilities) of the user system 12 in conjunction
with pages, forms, applications and other information provided by the
system 16 or other systems or servers. For example, the user interface
device can be used to access data and applications hosted by system 16,
and to perform searches on stored data, and otherwise allow a user to
interact with various GUI pages that may be presented to a user. As
discussed above, implementations are suitable for use with the Internet,
although other networks can be used instead of or in addition to the
Internet, such as an intranet, an extranet, a virtual private network
(VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network, any LAN or WAN or the like.

[0028] The users of user systems 12 may differ in their respective
capacities, and the capacity of a particular user system 12 can be
entirely determined by permissions (permission levels) for the current
user of such user system. For example, where a salesperson is using a
particular user system 12 to interact with the system 16, that user
system can have the capacities allotted to the salesperson. However,
while an administrator is using that user system 12 to interact with the
system 16, that user system can have the capacities allotted to that
administrator. Where a hierarchical role model is used, users at one
permission level can have access to applications, data, and database
information accessible by a lower permission level user, but may not have
access to certain applications, database information, and data accessible
by a user at a higher permission level. Thus, different users generally
will have different capabilities with regard to accessing and modifying
application and database information, depending on the users' respective
security or permission levels (also referred to as "authorizations").

[0029] According to some implementations, each user system 12 and some or
all of its components are operator-configurable using applications, such
as a browser, including computer code executed using a central processing
unit (CPU) such as an Intel Pentium.RTM. processor or the like.
Similarly, the system 16 (and additional instances of an MTS, where more
than one is present) and all of its components can be
operator-configurable using application(s) including computer code to run
using the processor system 17, which may be implemented to include a CPU,
which may include an Intel Pentium.RTM. processor or the like, or
multiple CPUs.

[0030] The system 16 includes tangible computer-readable media having
non-transitory instructions stored thereon/in that are executable by or
used to program a server or other computing system (or collection of such
servers or computing systems) to perform some of the implementation of
processes described herein. For example, computer program code 26 can
implement instructions for operating and configuring the system 16 to
intercommunicate and to process web pages, applications and other data
and media content as described herein. In some implementations, the
computer code 26 can be downloadable and stored on a hard disk, but the
entire program code, or portions thereof, also can be stored in any other
volatile or non-volatile memory medium or device as is well known, such
as a ROM or RAM, or provided on any media capable of storing program
code, such as any type of rotating media including floppy disks, optical
discs, digital versatile disks (DVD), compact disks (CD), microdrives,
and magneto-optical disks, and magnetic or optical cards, nanosystems
(including molecular memory ICs), or any other type of computer-readable
medium or device suitable for storing instructions or data. Additionally,
the entire program code, or portions thereof, may be transmitted and
downloaded from a software source over a transmission medium, for
example, over the Internet, or from another server, as is well known, or
transmitted over any other existing network connection as is well known
(for example, extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communication medium
and protocols (for example, TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.) as are
well known. It will also be appreciated that computer code for the
disclosed implementations can be realized in any programming language
that can be executed on a server or other computing system such as, for
example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language, Java.TM., JavaScript,
ActiveX, any other scripting language, such as VBScript, and many other
programming languages as are well known may be used. (Java.TM. is a
trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.).

[0031] FIG. 1B shows a block diagram of example implementations of
elements of FIG. 1A and example interconnections between these elements
according to some implementations. That is, FIG. 1B also illustrates
environment 10, but FIG. 1B, various elements of the system 16 and
various interconnections between such elements are shown with more
specificity according to some more specific implementations.
Additionally, in FIG. 1B, the user system 12 includes a processor system
12A, a memory system 12B, an input system 12C, and an output system 12D.
The processor system 12A can include any suitable combination of one or
more processors. The memory system 12B can include any suitable
combination of one or more memory devices. The input system 12C can
include any suitable combination of input devices, such as one or more
touchscreen interfaces, keyboards, mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras,
or interfaces to networks. The output system 12D can include any suitable
combination of output devices, such as one or more display devices,
printers, or interfaces to networks.

[0032] In FIG. 1B, the network interface 20 is implemented as a set of
HTTP application servers 100.sub.1-100.sub.N. Each application server
100, also referred to herein as an "app server", is configured to
communicate with tenant database 22 and the tenant data 23 therein, as
well as system database 24 and the system data 25 therein, to serve
requests received from the user systems 12. The tenant data 23 can be
divided into individual tenant storage spaces 112, which can be
physically or logically arranged or divided. Within each tenant storage
space 112, user storage 114 and application metadata 116 can similarly be
allocated for each user. For example, a copy of a user's most recently
used (MRU) items can be stored to user storage 114. Similarly, a copy of
MRU items for an entire organization that is a tenant can be stored to
tenant storage space 112.

[0033] The process space 28 includes system process space 102, individual
tenant process spaces 104 and a tenant management process space 110. The
application platform 18 includes an application setup mechanism 38 that
supports application developers' creation and management of applications.
Such applications and others can be saved as metadata into tenant
database 22 by save routines 36 for execution by subscribers as one or
more tenant process spaces 104 managed by tenant management process 110,
for example. Invocations to such applications can be coded using PL/SOQL
34, which provides a programming language style interface extension to
API 32. A detailed description of some PL/SOQL language implementations
is discussed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478, titled METHOD
AND SYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA A
MULTI-TENANT ON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by Craig Weissman, issued on
Jun. 1, 2010, and hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and
for all purposes. Invocations to applications can be detected by one or
more system processes, which manage retrieving application metadata 116
for the subscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata as an
application in a virtual machine.

[0034] The system 16 of FIG. 1B also includes a user interface (UI) 30 and
an application programming interface (API) 32 to system 16 resident
processes to users or developers at user systems 12. In some other
implementations, the environment 10 may not have the same elements as
those listed above or may have other elements instead of, or in addition
to, those listed above.

[0035] Each application server 100 can be communicably coupled with tenant
database 22 and system database 24, for example, having access to tenant
data 23 and system data 25, respectively, via a different network
connection. For example, one application server 100.sub.1 can be coupled
via the network 14 (for example, the Internet), another application
server 100.sub.N-1 can be coupled via a direct network link, and another
application server 100.sub.N can be coupled by yet a different network
connection. Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) are
examples of typical protocols that can be used for communicating between
application servers 100 and the system 16. However, it will be apparent
to one skilled in the art that other transport protocols can be used to
optimize the system 16 depending on the network interconnections used.

[0036] In some implementations, each application server 100 is configured
to handle requests for any user associated with any organization that is
a tenant of the system 16. Because it can be desirable to be able to add
and remove application servers 100 from the server pool at any time and
for various reasons, in some implementations there is no server affinity
for a user or organization to a specific application server 100. In some
such implementations, an interface system implementing a load balancing
function (for example, an F5 Big-IP load balancer) is communicably
coupled between the application servers 100 and the user systems 12 to
distribute requests to the application servers 100. In one
implementation, the load balancer uses a least-connections algorithm to
route user requests to the application servers 100. Other examples of
load balancing algorithms, such as round robin and
observed-response-time, also can be used. For example, in some instances,
three consecutive requests from the same user could hit three different
application servers 100, and three requests from different users could
hit the same application server 100. In this manner, by way of example,
system 16 can be a multi-tenant system in which system 16 handles storage
of, and access to, different objects, data and applications across
disparate users and organizations.

[0037] In one example storage use case, one tenant can be a company that
employs a sales force where each salesperson uses system 16 to manage
aspects of their sales. A user can maintain contact data, leads data,
customer follow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc.,
all applicable to that user's personal sales process (for example, in
tenant database 22). In an example of a MTS arrangement, because all of
the data and the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit,
calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system 12
having little more than network access, the user can manage his or her
sales efforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For
example, when a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customer has
Internet access in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain critical
updates regarding that customer while waiting for the customer to arrive
in the lobby.

[0038] While each user's data can be stored separately from other users'
data regardless of the employers of each user, some data can be
organization-wide data shared or accessible by several users or all of
the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, there can be
some data structures managed by system 16 that are allocated at the
tenant level while other data structures can be managed at the user
level. Because an MTS can support multiple tenants including possible
competitors, the MTS can have security protocols that keep data,
applications, and application use separate. Also, because many tenants
may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their own system,
redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions that can be
implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data and
tenant-specific data, the system 16 also can maintain system level data
usable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data can
include industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharable
among tenants.

[0039] In some implementations, the user systems 12 (which also can be
client systems) communicate with the application servers 100 to request
and update system-level and tenant-level data from the system 16. Such
requests and updates can involve sending one or more queries to tenant
database 22 or system database 24. The system 16 (for example, an
application server 100 in the system 16) can automatically generate one
or more SQL statements (for example, one or more SQL queries) designed to
access the desired information. System database 24 can generate query
plans to access the requested data from the database. The term "query
plan" generally refers to one or more operations used to access
information in a database system.

[0040] Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects,
such as a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefined
or customizable categories. A "table" is one representation of a data
object, and may be used herein to simplify the conceptual description of
objects and custom objects according to some implementations. It should
be understood that "table" and "object" may be used interchangeably
herein. Each table generally contains one or more data categories
logically arranged as columns or fields in a viewable schema. Each row or
element of a table can contain an instance of data for each category
defined by the fields. For example, a CRM database can include a table
that describes a customer with fields for basic contact information such
as name, address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table can
describe a purchase order, including fields for information such as
customer, product, sale price, date, etc. In some MTS implementations,
standard entity tables can be provided for use by all tenants. For CRM
database applications, such standard entities can include tables for
case, account, contact, lead, and opportunity data objects, each
containing pre-defined fields. As used herein, the term "entity" also may
be used interchangeably with "object" and "table."

[0041] In some MTS implementations, tenants are allowed to create and
store custom objects, or may be allowed to customize standard entities or
objects, for example by creating custom fields for standard objects,
including custom index fields. Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,779,039,
titled CUSTOM ENTITIES AND FIELDS IN A MULTI-TENANT DATABASE SYSTEM, by
Weissman et al., issued on Aug. 17, 2010, and hereby incorporated by
reference in its entirety and for all purposes, teaches systems and
methods for creating custom objects as well as customizing standard
objects in a multi-tenant database system. In some implementations, for
example, all custom entity data rows are stored in a single multi-tenant
physical table, which may contain multiple logical tables per
organization. It is transparent to customers that their multiple "tables"
are in fact stored in one large table or that their data may be stored in
the same table as the data of other customers.

II. Introduction for Access Controlled Queries Against Customer Data in a
Datastore

[0042] A method enables business users to tag first objects' attributes,
e.g., business objects' attributes, to allow reading and editing of the
first objects and their attributes by non-business users. In an example,
the first objects are business objects, e.g., (e.g., modular combine-able
code blocks). Non-business users are allowed access to first objects
based on system permissions. The method maps the first objects to
associated second objects, e.g., their lower level data representations,
allowing non-business users to access and edit the second objects by
operating upon the first objects, which may be more easily operated upon.

[0043] As used herein. "business users" refers to users of a datastore. In
embodiments where the datastore is for a cloud server, these users may be
subscribers of a cloud computing service, such as entities that build and
host applications constructed from first objects. These users may grant
permissions for access (e.g., read access and/or write access)
corresponding to first objects and/or their attributes. In some cases,
these users may own the data to which they grant permission for access,
although this is not required. "Non-business users" are other entities,
such as infrastructure maintenance users that are involved in improving
application performance, optimizing application resources, and providing
customer support for a variety of business users.

[0044] Non-business users may execute queries (e.g., data manipulation
language (DML) and data definition language (DLL) actions) against a
datastore directly, with consent of the business users that own the data
in the datastores. The business users interact with the data in the
datastores at the level of first objects (e.g., business objects), and
can grant the non-business users access to some or all first objects and
their attributes. However, the non-business users often need to execute
queries against second objects, e.g., objects that are not exposed to the
business users for a variety of reasons (for instance, low level database
objects such as tables, columns, procedures, views, functions, sequences,
or the like, or combinations thereof).

[0045] Embodiments of a process and systems are described that enable
business users to grant query access to nonbusiness users to some or all
first objects, along with some or all of their attributes. The granted
accesses are translated to query access permissions against the second
objects, e.g., low level database objects, such as tables, columns,
procedures, views, functions, sequences, or the like, or combinations
thereof. A query execution interface enables non-business users to issue
native database queries (e.g., SQL) against the database, after
validating that the issued queries select, filter and join tables only
against those columns for which right access can be deduced based on the
accesses granted on the first objects (and their set of corresponding
attributes, e.g., business object attributes). Particular second objects,
e.g., low level database objects, may or may not be queryable based on
flexible system rules.

[0046] In an example, a system manages permissions of computing objects
dynamically. Instructions to recalculate permissions are created and
associated with an object. The instructions are invoked when the object
changes, so that modifications of that object's attributes result in
changes to the object's access permissions.

[0047] FIG. 2 illustrates an access control structure 150 in accordance
with one embodiment. In some embodiments, the datastore 164 may
correspond with any database described herein (e.g., the tenant database
22), and may include any components thereof. In some embodiments, at
least one of the security descriptor 156 or the business object 160 may
be accessible to any device described in FIGS. 1A-1B (e.g., any
application server), and the operations performed on and/or using the
security descriptor 156 and/or the business object 160 may be performed
thereby (wholly or in part). In some examples, some of the operations
performed on and/or using the security descriptor 156 and/or the business
object 160 may be performed by any user system of FIGS. 1A-B (an
application server may download code, which may be executed in some
examples by a standard browser that is specially configured when
executing the code to perform these operations).

[0048] An improved security descriptor 156 may store executable
information or may refer to executable information. The security
descriptor may be utilized for dynamically creating access control
entries 166, modified or deleted responsive to a change of attributes of
a business object 160. Those dynamically created, modified or deleted
access control entries 166 may be referred to as managed access control
entries.

[0049] The owner of a business object 160 may specify how permissions of
the business object 160 depend on business object attributes 168 of the
business object 160 via a new object data type and object, referred to as
instruction control entries 154. Instruction control entries 154 are
stored in a new collection data type and collection, which will be
referred to as instruction control lists 152. The improved security
descriptor 156 may store a plurality of instruction control lists 152.

[0050] Each of the instruction control entries 154 may include executable
instructions 158 represented by an algorithm, rule, policy or similar
structure. Every time the business object 160 may be stored to the
datastore 164, the executable instructions 158 may read business object
attributes 168 of that business object 160 as input parameters and may
apply them to generate a list of managed access control entries 166. In
addition to the executable instructions 158, each of the instruction
control entries 154 can optionally include helper objects 162 such as
preset lists of entities or preset lists of access rights, which help it
to build managed access control entries 166. Access permissions of a
business object 160 may thus change dynamically every time that business
object 160 changes.

[0051] FIG. 3 illustrates an access controller in accordance with one
embodiment. In some examples, the components described with respect to
FIG. 3 may be part of one or more of the devices of the system of FIGS.
1A-B. For instance, an application server may download code to a user
system, and this code may be executed in some examples by a standard
browser that is specially configured when executing the code to provide
some or all of these components (e.g., the query execution interface 202
and/or the object access tagger 204, etc.). Other components besides
those provided by the user system may be provided by the application
server of FIGS. 1A-1B, in some examples.

[0052] Referring to FIG. 3, the query execution interface 202 may be a
machine interface through which a non-business user issues a query. The
query execution interface 202 may return results if the query is
accessing data that has been granted permissions by the business
users/data owners for access by the nonbusiness users. Otherwise the
query execution interface 202 may block the query, and may return an
error to the issuing non-business user. The query execution interface 202
may be accessed programmatically or manually via a user interface (UI)
such as a web page 222 (for instance a web page to be displayed on the
user system 12 of FIGS. 1A-B, an API (application program interface)
call, a REST (representational state transfer) call, or the like, or
combinations thereof).

[0053] The object access tagger 204 may be implemented for example as a
set of UI screens and/or an application program interface (API) that may
enable the business users/data owners to tag each of their owned business
objects and their set of corresponding business object attributes with
access permissions. In some examples, the object access tagger 204 may be
associated with an interface to select, to tag as readable or writable or
both, only objects to which the subscriber is exposed to. The object
access tagger 204 may have an operational granularity sufficient to
operate on a single attribute of the business objects at a time, or it
may operate on all business objects in bulk. The access permissions may
be granted in variety of ways (by means of inheritance, relationships,
globally based on type of the attributes, matching a pattern, and so on).

[0054] The object access fetcher 206 may return the granted accesses for a
business object and its set of corresponding business object attributes.

[0055] The mappings translator 216 may operate to translate a set of
provided business objects to their low level representation in the
datastore 164 (such as tables, columns, procedures, views, functions,
sequences, or the like, or combinations thereof).

[0056] The reverse multimap 218 may be constructed to map between the
corresponding low level representations and the business object
attributes. A map may be a key map to a value; a multimap may be a key
map to more than one value. A multimap may be for the attributes of the
first object mapped to the second objects. The reverse multimap 218 may
be for the second objects mapped to the attributes of the first objects.

[0057] The datastore object access mapper 210 may generate metadata
representing the low level objects in the datastore 164, and may annotate
that metadata with deduced access permissions from access permissions,
granted by the business users/organization owning the data in the
business objects, using the object access tagger 204.

[0058] The query executor 208 may control the flow of execution of the
query.

[0059] The query parser 214 may parse the issued query, may validate
syntax, and may convert the query to a higher level object form, the
query object 212, which may be more suitably operated upon.

[0060] The query object 212 may be a high level representation of the
issued query, created by the query parser 214. The query object 212 may
preserve all relationships between low level database objects referred to
in the query. The query object 212 may make available the following
categories of columns, all fully qualified (schema, db-table name, and
column-name):

[0061] a. All selected columns.

[0062] b. All columns that are part of any join conditions between the
tables.

[0063] c. All columns against which data selection criteria have been
specified (predicates/filters).

[0064] The final selected column list, filtered on column list, and join
list need not necessarily have been directly specified in the query
(select-star expansion, alias resolution, scope inference, part of an
expression), but the query parser 214 may traverse all scopes and aliases
and may recursively resolve the associated columns until they cannot be
resolved any further.

[0065] In one embodiment, a business user may operate the object access
tagger 204 to tag one or more business objects and their set of
corresponding business object attributes as readable (and/or writable). A
nonbusiness user may operate the query execution interface 202 to submit
a query for execution by the query executor 208. The query executor 208
may invoke the query parser 214, and may submit the query to the query
parser 214 for execution.

[0066] The query parser 214 may parse the submitted query, and after
validating syntax (e.g. using a formal grammar), may create and may
return a corresponding query object 212 to the nonbusiness user
("invokee"). If a syntax error is found, the query parser 214 may return
an error, with details, to the invokee. The query executor 208 may
validate that the submitted query may have a filter specified for a
target organization. If the query executor 208 does not find a filter
specified for the target organization, it may generate one.

[0067] The query executor 208 may invoke the mappings translator 216 to
translate all the business objects and their set of corresponding
business object attributes to their corresponding tables and columns, for
the target organization. The query executor 208 may apply mapping
information from the mappings translator 216 to build a reverse multimap
218 between columns and business object attributes of the business
objects. The relationship may be many-to-many (one column may map to
multiple business object attributes (either for the same business object
or across different business objects), and multiple business object
attributes (belonging to the same business object or different business
objects) may map to the same column). The query executor 208 may cache,
e.g., persist, the reverse multimap 218 for reuse, or rebuild the reverse
multimap 218 as needed.

[0068] Referring to FIG. 4, in block 302, process for issuing access
controlled queries 300 may tag one or more business objects and business
object attributes as readable or writable or both. In some examples, the
tagging may correspond to any available renderings of the business
objects, and the tagging may be using standardized UI/API components
and/or special purpose UI/API components.

[0069] In block 304, process for issuing access controlled queries 300 may
submit a query for execution. In block 306, process for issuing access
controlled queries 300 may submit the query to a query parser. In block
308, process for issuing access controlled queries 300 may parse the
query to validate a query syntax. In block 310, process for issuing
access controlled queries 300 may create and may return a query object
corresponding to the query. In block 312, process for issuing access
controlled queries 300 may validate that the query has a filter specified
for a target organization. In block 314, process for issuing access
controlled queries 300 may translate the business objects and their
attributes to mapping information. In block 316, process for issuing
access controlled queries 300 may apply the low level representations
(e.g., tables, columns, procedures, views, functions, sequences, or the
like, or combinations thereof) to build a reverse multimap between the
corresponding low level representations. Processing then may continue at
process for issuing access controlled queries 400.

[0070] In one embodiment, the query executor 208 may query the query
object 212 for all the columns that appear in the query, directly or
indirectly (e.g., may directly select of a column, select as a function
on one or more columns, joins, filters). For each of these columns, the
query executor 208 may query the reverse multimap 218
[column-name]->{business-object.Attribute}, to retrieve the set of
business object attributes that the particular column maps to. The query
executor 208 may create a set of corresponding business object attributes
corresponding to the retrieved business object attributes, that may hold
accesses granted to each of the business object attributes by the data
owner/business user. The query executor 208 may apply system rules and/or
configuration to reduce the accesses set to a value of readable or a
value of not readable (e.g. system rules that may reduce the accesses set
to one value, for example reducing the set to the most permissive access
or reducing the set to most restrictive value). For columns that are not
part of business objects, flexible system rules may or may not grant read
and/or write access to the columns that directly or indirectly appear in
the query.

[0071] If the reduced set is found to have a value of not readable, the
query executor 208 may stop any further processing, and may indicate to
the invokee of the query executor 208 that the query violates access
permissions for the business objects.

[0072] However, if all the columns that directly or indirectly appear in
the query are found to have a reduced access value of readable, the query
executor 208 may submit the query to the datastore 164 for execution, and
transparently may return a datastore response to the invokee via the
query execution interface 202.

[0073] Referring to FIG. 5, at block 402 process for issuing access
controlled queries 400 may analyze a query object of a query for columns
that directly or indirectly appear in the query. In block 404, process
for issuing access controlled queries 400 may analyze corresponding
tables and columns for each of the columns that directly or indirectly
appear in the query for a set of corresponding business object
attributes. In block 406, process for issuing access controlled queries
400 may create an accesses set corresponding to the set of corresponding
business object attributes. In block 408, process for issuing access
controlled queries 400 may apply system rules or configuration to assign
to the accesses set a single accesses value which may be either readable
or not readable, in some examples. In decision block 410, process for
issuing access controlled queries 400 may test if the single accesses
value has a value of not readable. If so, in block 412, process for
issuing access controlled queries 400 may stop further processing of the
query and in block 414 and may generate an indication that the query
violates access rights. Otherwise, in block 416, process for issuing
access controlled queries 400 may submit the query to a datastore for
execution and in block 418 may return a result of execution of the query
by the datastore. In done block 420 process for issuing access controlled
queries 400 ends.

[0074] FIG. 6 illustrates several components of an exemplary system 500 in
accordance with one embodiment. In various embodiments, system 500 may
include a desktop PC, server, workstation, mobile phone, laptop, tablet,
set-top box, appliance, or other computing device that is capable of
performing operations such as those described herein. In some
embodiments, system 500 may include many more components than those shown
in FIG. 5. However, it is not necessary that all of these generally
conventional components be shown in order to disclose an illustrative
embodiment. Collectively, the various tangible components or a subset of
the tangible components may be referred to herein as "logic" configured
or adapted in a particular way, for example as logic configured or
adapted with particular software or firmware.

[0075] In various embodiments, system 500 may comprise one or more
physical and/or logical devices that collectively provide the
functionalities described herein. In some embodiments, system 500 may
comprise one or more replicated and/or distributed physical or logical
devices.

[0076] In some embodiments, system 500 may comprise one or more computing
resources provisioned from a "cloud computing" provider, for example,
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud ("Amazon EC2"), provided by Amazon.com, Inc.
of Seattle, Wash.; Sun Cloud Compute Utility, provided by Sun
Microsystems, Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif.; Windows Azure, provided by
Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash., and the like.

[0077] System 500 includes a bus 502 interconnecting several components
including a network interface 508, a display 506, a central processing
unit 510, and a memory 504.

[0079] These and other software components may be loaded into memory 504
of system 500 using a drive mechanism (not shown) associated with a
non-transitory computer-readable medium 516, such as a floppy disc, tape,
DVD/CD-ROM drive, memory card, or the like.

[0080] Memory 504 also includes database 514. In some embodiments, system
500 may communicate with database 514 via network interface 508, a
storage area network ("SAN"), a high-speed serial bus, and/or via the
other suitable communication technology.

[0081] In some embodiments, database 514 may comprise one or more storage
resources provisioned from a "cloud storage" provider, for example,
Amazon Simple Storage Service ("Amazon S3"), provided by Amazon.com. Inc.
of Seattle, Wash., Google Cloud Storage, provided by Google, Inc. of
Mountain View, Calif. and the like.

[0082] To illustrate operation of the system above in a simple case,
consider an example of a page including information about people related
to a cloud server. The information may include name, SSN (social security
number), and address. The business user (e.g., subscriber of the cloud
service) may access a rendering of this information.

[0083] This information may be stored in a table of a relational database
of the cloud service. The address may be stored as more than one column,
e.g., address line one and address line two. Although the address which
is shown as one entity in the rendering, the address may be stored in
more than one column in the table of the database (e.g., address line
one, address line two, etc.).

[0084] The business user may grant read access to only the name and the
address of the rendering. The business user may not be exposed to
relational database storage artifacts, such as the columns. For example,
an object access tagger may include an interface to select the rendering
of the name, SSN and address for granting access, or not (the relational
database storage artifacts may not be selectable by this interface).

[0085] After the grant of access to the rendering using the tagger, a
non-business user may use a query execution interface to issue an inquiry
to select information including SSN (e.g., an inquiry have a filter
corresponding to SSN). The query may fail, e.g., is not submitted to the
database, because the access was not granted on the SSN rendering.
However, in contrast, with respect to the address an inquiry by a
non-business user selecting one of the columns of the address may succeed
(even though the grant of read access may be to the rendering for the
address).

Examples

[0086] Example A is a method, comprising: tagging one or more business
objects and business object attributes as readable or writable or both;
submitting a query for execution; submitting the query to a query parser;
parsing the query to validate a query syntax; creating and returning a
query object corresponding to the query; validating that the query has a
filter specified for a target organization; translating the business
objects and their attributes to mapping information comprising
corresponding tables and columns for the target organization; and
applying the corresponding tables and columns to build a reverse multimap
between the corresponding tables and columns and the business object
attributes.

[0087] Example B is a method, comprising: analyzing a query object of a
query for columns that directly or indirectly appear in the query;
analyzing corresponding tables and columns for each of the columns that
directly or indirectly appear in the query for a set of corresponding
business object attributes; creating an accesses set corresponding to the
set of corresponding business object attributes comprising accesses
granted to each of the business object attributes by a data owner;
applying system rules or configuration to assign to the accesses set a
single accesses value which is either readable or not readable; if the
single accesses value has a value of not readable; stopping further
processing of the query; generating an indication that the query violates
access rights; otherwise if the single accesses value has a value of
readable; submitting the query to a datastore for execution; and
returning a result of execution of the query by the datastore.

[0088] Example 1 is a memory device having instructions stored thereon
that, in response to execution by a processing device, cause the
processing device to perform operations comprising: identifying one or
more grants of permission corresponding to one or more first objects,
respectively, wherein the one or more first objects comprise only a
subset of objects of a datastore for a cloud service, wherein the one or
more first objects includes a business object and the one or more grants
of permission are by a subscriber of the cloud service; generating an
access control entry for a second object of the objects using at least
one of the identified grants of permission, wherein the second object is
not exposed to the subscriber; and in responsive to receipt of a query
for data corresponding to the objects, determining whether to grant
access to the data based on the generated access control entry.

[0089] Example 2 may include the subject matter of example 1, and the
operations further comprise generating a user interface to enable one or
more users of the subscriber to select, for tagging as readable or
writable or both, only objects of the subset of the objects.

[0090] Example 3 may include the subject matter of any of examples 1-2, or
any other example herein, and the second object comprises a relational
datastore storage artifact.

[0091] Example 4 may include the subject matter of any of examples 1-3, or
any other example herein, and the relational datastore storage artifact
includes at least one of a relational database table, a relational
database column, a relational database procedure, a relational database
view, a relational database function, or a relational database sequence.

[0092] Example 5 may include the subject matter of any of examples 1-4, or
any other example herein, and the cloud service comprises a PaaS
(platform as a service) and the business objects comprise modular
combinable code blocks.

[0093] Example 6 may include the subject matter of any of examples 1-5, or
any other example herein and the identified one or more grants of
permission correspond to at least one of read access or write access.

[0094] Example 7 may include the subject matter of any of examples 1-6, or
any other example herein, and the operations include: translating
information about the first objects to mapping information comprising the
second objects; and using the mapping information to generate the access
control entry.

[0095] Example 8 may include the subject matter of any of examples 1-7, or
any other example herein, and the second objects correspond to at least
one of a relational database table, a relational database column, a
relational database procedure, a relational database view, a relational
database function, or a relational database sequence.

[0096] Example 9 may include the subject matter of any of examples 1-8, or
any other example herein, and the grants of permission are for renderings
of data associated with the first objects.

[0097] Example 10 may include the subject matter of any of examples 1-9,
or any other example herein, and constructing a reverse multimap to map
between the second objects and attributes of the first objects; wherein
determining whether to grant access to the data based on the generated
access control entry includes querying the reverse multimap.

[0098] Example 11 is a memory device having stored thereon: an instruction
control entry including executable instructions to read tagging data of a
first object responsive to storage of the first object of a plurality of
objects in a datastore of a cloud service or modification of the first
object in the datastore, to generate an access control entry for a second
object of the plurality of objects based on a result of the reading; and
an instruction control interface module to determine whether to grant
access to data that is of the datastore and associated with the second
object based on the generated access control entry, to return a result
for the query based on a result of the determination.

[0099] Example 12 may include the subject matter of example 11, or any
other example herein, and the returned result includes a grant of access
to the data or user messaging indicating no access to the data.

[0100] Example 13 may include the subject matter of any of examples 11-12,
or any other example herein, and the returned result is to be presented
on a web page.

[0101] Example 14 may include the subject matter of any of examples 11-13,
or any other example herein, and the determination is for access by a
first category of user and the memory device further having stored
thereon: an object access tagging module to generate the tagging data
based on a user selection of a second category of user that is different
than the first category of user.

[0102] Example 15 may include the subject matter of any of examples 11-14,
or any other example herein, and further having stored thereon: a mapping
translator module to construct a multimap to map an attribute of the
first object to at least the second object and a third object of the
plurality of objects, the multimap usable to generate a reverse multimap
to be used to determine whether to grant access to data.

[0103] Example 16 is a method, comprising: generating a user interface to
enable one or more users of a subscribing entity of a cloud service to
select, to tag as readable or writable or both, only objects of a first
subset of a plurality of objects of a datastore of the cloud service;
translating the objects of the first subset and their attributes to
mapping information for objects of a second different subset of the
plurality of objects; building a reverse multimap corresponding to the
objects of the second different subset using the mapping information; and
in response to receipt of a request by a user of a hosting entity of the
cloud service, identifying a portion of data of the datastore to which
the request corresponds and determining whether to grant access to the
user of the hosting entity access to that portion of the data using the
reverse multimap.

[0104] Example 17 includes the subject matter of example 16, or any other
example herein, and after the user interface is displayed, receiving
tagging information identifying one or more business objects of the first
subset of objects and business object attributes corresponding thereto as
readable or writable or both; submitting a query to a query parser
responsive to the receipt of the request; parsing the query to validate a
query syntax; creating and returning a query object corresponding to the
query; translating the business objects and their attributes to mapping
information comprising tables and columns, the tables and columns
comprising ones of the objects of the second subset; and applying the
tables and columns to build the reverse multimap.

[0105] Example 18 includes the subject matter of any of examples 16-17, or
any other example herein, and validating that the query has a filter
specified for a target organization; wherein the tables and columns
correspond to the target organization.

[0106] Example 19 includes the subject matter of any of examples 16-18, or
any other example herein, and analyzing the query object for columns of
the objects of the second subset that directly or indirectly appear in
the query; analyzing corresponding tables and columns for each of the
columns that directly or indirectly appear in the query for a set of
corresponding business object attributes; creating an accesses set
corresponding to the set of corresponding business object attributes
comprising accesses granted to each of the business object attributes,
the accesses granted of said tagging information; applying system rules
or a configuration to select, for the query, a single accesses value
which either a first value or a second value that is different than the
first value; and stopping further processing of the query and generating
an indication that the query violates access rights if the first value is
selected.

[0107] Example 20 includes the subject matter of any of examples 16-19, or
any other example herein, and submitting the query to the datastore for
execution to return a result of execution of the query by the datastore
if the second value is selected.

[0108] Example 21 is a memory device having instructions stored thereon
that, in response to execution by a processing device, cause the
processing device to perform operations comprising: identifying one or
more grants of permission corresponding to one or more first objects,
respectively, wherein the one or more first objects comprise only a
subset of objects of a datastore, wherein the one or more grants of
permission are by a user of the datastore; generating an access control
entry for a second object of the objects using at least one of the
identified grants of permission, wherein the second object is not exposed
to the user; and in responsive to receipt of a query for data
corresponding to the objects, determining whether to grant access to the
data based on the generated access control entry.

[0109] Example 22 includes the subject matter of example 21, and the
operations further comprise generating a user interface to enable the
user to select, for tagging as readable or writable or both, only objects
of the subset of the objects.

[0110] Example 22 includes the subject matter of any of examples 21-22,
and the second object comprises a relational datastore storage artifact.

[0111] Example 23 includes the subject matter of any of examples 21-23,
and the relational datastore storage artifact includes at least one of a
relational database table, a relational database column, a relational
database procedure, a relational database view, a relational database
function, or a relational database sequence.

[0112] Example 24 includes the subject matter of any of examples 21-24,
and the grants of permission are for renderings of data associated with
the first objects.

[0113] Example 25 includes the subject matter of any of examples 21-25,
and the grants of permission are for renderings of data associated with
the first objects.

[0114] The specific details of the specific aspects of implementations
disclosed herein may be combined in any suitable manner without departing
from the spirit and scope of the disclosed implementations. However,
other implementations may be directed to specific implementations
relating to each individual aspect, or specific combinations of these
individual aspects.

[0115] Additionally, while the disclosed examples are often described
herein with reference to an implementation in which an on-demand database
service environment is implemented in a system having an application
server providing a front end for an on-demand database service capable of
supporting multiple tenants, the present implementations are not limited
to multi-tenant databases or deployment on application servers.
Implementations may be practiced using other database architectures,
i.e., ORACLE.RTM., DB2.RTM. by IBM and the like without departing from
the scope of the implementations claimed.

[0116] It should also be understood that some of the disclosed
implementations can be embodied in the form of various types of hardware,
software, firmware, or combinations thereof, including in the form of
control logic, and using such hardware or software in a modular or
integrated manner. Other ways or methods are possible using hardware and
a combination of hardware and software. Additionally, any of the software
components or functions described in this application can be implemented
as software code to be executed by one or more processors using any
suitable computer language such as, for example, Java, C++ or Perl using,
for example, existing or object-oriented techniques. The software code
can be stored as a computer or processor-executable instructions or
commands on a physical non-transitory computer-readable medium. Examples
of suitable media include random access memory (RAM), read only memory
(ROM), magnetic media such as a hard-drive or a floppy disk, or an
optical medium such as a compact disk (CD) or DVD (digital versatile
disk), flash memory, and the like, or any combination of such storage or
transmission devices.

[0117] Computer-readable media encoded with the software/program code may
be packaged with a compatible device or provided separately from other
devices (for example, via Internet download). Any such computer-readable
medium may reside on or within a single computing device or an entire
computer system, and may be among other computer-readable media within a
system or network. A computer system, or other computing device, may
include a monitor, printer, or other suitable display for providing any
of the results mentioned herein to a user.

[0118] While some implementations have been described herein, it should be
understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not
limitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present application should
not be limited by any of the implementations described herein, but should
be defined only in accordance with the following and later submitted
claims and their equivalents.